Library News

The work of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently been in the news. The Executive Summary for Policymakers (pdf), part of its 4^th Assessment Report, was recently released. The report documents the current scientific understanding and analysis on global climate change and recommends policy actions to address the global warming that is currently occurring on Earth. The IPCC will continue working on this issue and the more comprehensive Assessment Report is due out later in 2007.

The IPCC works within the framework of the United Nations. The University of Iowa Libraries is a United Nations (UN) depository library and collects a wide variety of materials published by the UN. For more information about the UN collection, please visit the UN Research Guide. For more information, contact Brett Cloyd (brett-cloyd@uiowa.edu).

On Monday, April 9th, Libraries staff will move the library servers to their re-furbished home. The move will start around 10pm and will probably last until midnight.

This move will affect ALL online library services, meaning that all library websites will be unavailable, users will not be able to connect to library resources (databases, indexes, etc.); library users will not be able to connect to journal articles via InfoLink or search resources using My Library; off-campus users will not be able to connect to resources through the proxy server.

The Libraries server room was renovated as part of the Information Arcade project. This new room is larger, temperature controlled and more able to accommodate all the servers that run millions of library resources.

After the move is complete, library services will return to normal. If you have any questions regarding this project, please contact the Director of Library Information Technology Paul Soderdahl.

University Archivist David McCartney has been elected to a two-year term as secretary of the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC). He’ll join Dennis Meissner of the Minnesota Historical Society (president-elect), Tanya Zanish-Belcher of Iowa State University (vice president), and Craig Wright of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum (treasurer) as MAC officers.

With over 1,100 individual members and about 180 institutional members, MAC is the nation’s largest regional archives organization, serving 13 states. Corporate, government, religious and university archives are members, as are historical societies, manuscripts repositories, and other special collections.

UI Libraries Conservator Gary Frost, Larry Raid of the Working Linotype Museum and graduate library science student Bethany Templeton are hosting a historical printing exposition at the Mossman Printing Services Building today, Thursday, April 5, from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm.

You can see some of the technology that shaped early 20th-century commercial printing practices. You can actually try your hand at running a Linotype, Washington-style press and a small jobber press and make your own personalized bookmark.

The Mossman Printing Services Building is located south of downtown Iowa City on Riverside Drive.  To get there by

• By bus: The Iowa City Transit Westport bus leaves Old Capitol Mall at 45 minutes past each hour and stops on Riverside Drive on the hour just across the street from the Mossman Building.
• By car: Drive south on Riverside Drive through the intersection of Highways 1 and 6. Stay on the main road, which turns into Old Highway 218 South (Riverside Drive splits off near the Army Reserve facility). The Mossman Building is on the left, across from Colonial Bowling Lanes and between the two Hubbard Feeds buildings. 

Eight Below, The Magnificent Seven and Shall We Dance?. What do these titles have in common?

They are all films were first developed by Japanese filmmakers and later remade for American audiences.

In the 1983 movie, Nankyoku Monogatari or Antarctica, two Japanese scientists, Ushioda and Ochi, develop a bond with their sled dogs while on an expedition in Antarctica. Ushioda and Ochi eventually leave Antarctica, only to return to search for the dogs inadvertently marooned there. In 2006, Walt Disney Pictures released Eight Below. Both films were loosely based on a 1958 Japanese expedition to the South Pole.

Shichinin no samurai or Seven Samurai is a 1954 film about a village of farmers that hire seven samurai warriors to combat bandits who return after the harvest to steal their crops. The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 Western with many of the same scenes and even some of the same dialogue.

Shall We Dansu? was released in Japan in 1996. It is the story of an unhappy accountant who secretly begins taking ballroom dance lessons. The film was very popular and won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Picture. The American remake Shall We Dance? did not receive as much critical acclaim.

Interested in other films that were originally created in East Asia and remade into motion pictures in the United States, check out this selected bibliography. You can also learn more about the Japanese Collections in the UI Libraries and contact the Japanese Collections Librarian.

Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Week, the Asian Pacific American Cultural Center (APACC) is hosting a number of events including a screening of the film entitled “Better Luck Tomorrow” on Thursday night in the Adler Building at 7 p.m. For more information about the events contact APACC President, Ben Mai.